Being good to look good: self‐reported moral character predicts moral double standards among reputation‐seeking individuals

Dong, M, Kupfer, TR ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1147-6082, Yuan, S and van Prooijen, J-W, 2023. Being good to look good: self‐reported moral character predicts moral double standards among reputation‐seeking individuals. British Journal of Psychology, 114 (1), pp. 244-261. ISSN 0007-1269

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Abstract

Moral character is widely expected to lead to moral judgements and practices. However, such expectations are often breached, especially when moral character is measured by self-report. We propose that because self-reported moral character partly reflects a desire to appear good, people who self-report a strong moral character will show moral harshness towards others and downplay their own transgressions-that is, they will show greater moral hypocrisy. This self-other discrepancy in moral judgements should be pronounced among individuals who are particularly motivated by reputation. Employing diverse methods including large-scale multi-nation panel data (N = 34,323), and vignette and behavioural experiments (N = 700), four studies supported our proposition , showing that various indicators of moral character (Benevolence and Universalism values, justice sensitivity, and moral identity) predicted harsher judgements of others' more than own transgressions. Moreover, these double standards emerged particularly among individuals possessing strong reputation management motives. The findings highlight how reputational concerns moderate the link between moral character and moral judgement.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	British Journal of Psychology
Creators:	Dong, M., Kupfer, T.R., Yuan, S. and van Prooijen, J.-W.
Publisher:	Wiley
Date:	February 2023
Volume:	114
Number:	1
ISSN:	0007-1269
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1111/bjop.12608 DOI 2366488 Other
Rights:	© 2022 the authors. British Journal of Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The British Psychological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	04 Feb 2025 14:22
Last Modified:	04 Feb 2025 14:22
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/52969

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